Common Ground

How Early School Starts Are Bad.

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Many kids, in a recent poll conducted by myself and my class only 1:4 kids at Harwood like starting as early as it is, enjoy school because they like to learn and be with their friends but are not able to enjoy it because they are too tired during the school day to function as efficiently as possible.

School hours officially start at 8 A.M. but many kids have to wake up as early as 6 A.M. to get ready for school; this causes serious and long lasting effects to a school aged child’s brain. There have been multiple scientific studies about the effects of waking up early and its correlations to low grades, or studies on why teenager’s shouldn’t wake up early, There is a link to this at the bottom.

One study in specific proves that teenagers bodies start producing the sleep inducing chemical melatonin around 11 P.M. and stop producing it around 8 A.M. This means that teenagers naturally stay up later and sleep in later, it is not their decision to stay up late and sleep in but their body’s choice.

When the body is still producing melatonin or coming out of a sleep cycle it is extremely difficult for the brain to be receptive to new information and higher levels of thought; this means that it is harder to learn and solve problems early in the morning.

I know that from my experience and the experiences of other students that very few students enjoy getting up before 8 o’clock in the morning and teachers share this opinion.

There have been multiple studies done that show the effects of sleep deprivation or not getting at least 7 hours of sleep. These studies have proven that not getting enough sleep leads to higher suicide rates among teens, higher automobile incidents, and higher insulin resistance, leading to diabetes. It may be hard to transfer or change things nationwide and even within school districts but this is a serious problem for students and needs to be taken as such.